Letting Donors Know The Value

Hey, hey, how's it going? How's everybody doing this day? Yeah, so you know, we've been on the stream, we've been talking about our donors and how important it is during this time is to really get donors, build a relationship with them. And a part of ongoing relationships with your donors is really letting them know the value, the value that their donation has done for your organization and for the clients you serve.

Yeah.

So one of the things we want to make sure we do is we need to let them know by not just telling them this is what we've done, but actually showing them. And one of the things we could do is we give them reports, right? Yeah, reports, even quarterly. Quarterly reports are nice depending on how often you're getting donations, but the minimum you need to do is you need to give a report on an annual basis on how their donation has made a difference.

Yeah, and what should be included in an annual report? Not only are your financials, so that they can see what's come in and what's gone out, but, um, what they really want to see is they want to see what programs you've actually executed during the year. So that's why it's good to, like, just take the good practice to document some of the programs that have happened during the year.

You know, it's good. It's— hopefully people are using the database, and the database is where they're tracking all their donors. And in this donors, it's letting them know what program they, they are donating money to, to what group of kids. And so you can always go in and do a report. And also in your database, you can track, you know, the, the progress of the clients that you're serving, how many you serve, what demographic, what geographic location, what services they were provided. If they were provided with clothing, their stipends for anything. You want to make sure that you have all of those documented. So when it's in your annual report, it doesn't have to be a long, lengthy report. You can do a short report, and some people are doing video reports, you know, but you— and then if you do a video report, you can also do a transcript of that report and you can attach it. You know, you want to make sure your report isn't long and boring and drawn out. You put pictures in it so it's more appealing to the eyes, and and also put pictures of the clients that you served, if you're able to serve your— if they're able to take their picture. But if you do take pictures of your clients and you put them in your annual report, you want to make sure that you're getting a release of information, a release so you can videotape them or audiotape them and share it with others.

Yeah, exactly. Also, annual reports are just another way to even increase donor Donorship. People give to organizations that are transparent, and you want to be transparent, and you want people to see this is how you're using the money and this is where the money is going. So annual reports are good for that. Annual reports are also just another— like we said it, like it's important for the donors to know, but it also is just another— you could think of as another way to just say thank you. To say, here's where your money went and this is what I spent it on, so thank you.

It's really important to let people know what you spend on, not only for the donors but also the community, because the communities are also stakeholders in your organization. And a stakeholder is someone that has vested interest. So if you're in your community and you're doing work, the people in the community, they have vested interest because you could either hurt the community or you can make it better. So you want to make sure you do an annual report so you can put it in Maybe a funder may ask you for it, or maybe someone in the community may say, hey, do you have an annual report so I can see what you're doing? Maybe I want to collaborate with you. The annual report is so important, and you never know when someone's going to ask you. Your annual report, to make it easy too, you can pop it up on your website. So if somebody wants to get it, just say, go to my website, and you just go ahead and pop it down. It's up there, you know. And then you want to make— and then put the, your CEO or your, your board on your annual report and recognize your staff, you know, so that way for long term, you're still building relationships. When your staff is going, they may remember, you know what, when I was there, they put me in their annual report, you know, or someone may pick it up and say, hey, look at this annual report with this staff person in there, right? And they may get a job, or they may come back and serve on your board. So you want to make sure that all along the line you're building relationships. And as you're building your annual report, or quarterly, you can also recognize your donors quarterly.

And we talked about this too, just, um, one— I'll just do a little segue. One other way to recognize your donors is to keep a donors page on your website. And you know, the donor who, you know, every month or two or whatever, um, anytime you get a certain, uh, amount, that donor can go into a, like, a, the star circle and the circle, circle, and the triangle circle. You know, you can just create tiers and just keep track. But always, always, always you want to thank anyone who gives you— I even say if they give you $1, you want to thank them.

You want to thank them, absolutely. And you also want to do— if you're putting them on your website and you're making them visible, you want to make sure that you're asking your donor, is it okay? Again, get a release also with your donors too, because the donors may be like, I I don't— this is anonymous. I don't want everybody to know what I'm giving. Because keep in mind, when you— in your annual report, when you're putting it on there— and this may be an idea for you too— is when you're putting it on there, you're seeing their names. So other nonprofits, people can look at their name and be like, oh, look at Antoinette. Oh, Antoinette's giving this amount of money to this organization. Let me ask her for money too, right? So you want to look— so when you do put them on there, make sure you ask them and let them know what could possibly happen. If you put them on the website, because other people may come to them for funding also because they see that you care about something that they're passionate about too.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yes, but it is— those are all great ideas. If anyone has any other ideas, you know, we always know we're going to always thank them immediately, but we're talking about long-term thank you. So you're not just taking their money and forgetting about the, oh, thank you for your money, thank you one time and you forgot about them, right?

So, right. Well, well, we're actually proposing is that you thank them at least twice. You thank them maybe 3 times, I'll say it that way. You thank them once at the— immediately after you get the donation. You thank them again either by presenting them with this annual report or some kind of information about the program they actually got involved in. And then you thank them again by adding them to your website or doing a donor appreciation, you know, lunch or something. So, so we're really saying, you know, like, and that's what we are trying to drill home. It's not a one-time thank you and then, you know, you let the client go. You thank them repeatedly.

Repeatedly, yes. So we all appreciate that. So we think, like, we're going to thank you. We appreciate you coming. We appreciate you listening, um, to this. We appreciate the work that you're doing to build our communities with your nonprofit. So thank you for being here. Hope you have a good weekend. Remember, we are Vanessa and Antoinette at the Nonprofits Founders Club. If you're building your nonprofit and you want some support, join the club. We'll talk to you later.